Episode 11
After successfully defending the western flank, the party investigates the corpses and harvest some resources. After talking to Burk Brayon, the huntmaster, they learn that he had lost 21 militia in the battle with the spiders. The party takes note of the fallen and after searching for a while, they find two more corpses. The rest of the corpses seems to have been dragged off by other spiders. Sad but determined, Burk and his remaining militia try to carry the three corpses back to Wharram. Taman aids them and lessens the burden. Cade attempts to negotiate for a reward in exchange for helping Wharram outside of just defending here and there. The entire party looks at him extremely confused and angry. Burk responds by just walking away from him without saying a word. Cade learns that the timing of the conversation could have been better, from the rest of the party. Cade heads back to the inn instead of following the rest to the huntmaster's home. The rest of the party hands off the dead and helps the wounded to the infirmary. Sarah asks Burk where the rest of the militia is and with his response she arranges with Carden Noll to look after the injured while she delivers the bad news to the families of the deceased. Taman asks where the dead will be taken and is told they are taken to the temple before being buried. The party heads to the inn to get a good meal and a bed. After eating, They briefly discuss the plans for the next day. Zaren heads up to his room to sleep where he finds Cade brewing something with his alchemy set. Cade manages to brew his first Nightsight poison. Lilith goes to bed early. Nok-Nok heads up to his room and with a surprise and a few cryptic worlds from his patron, he receives his pacts weapon in the form of a battleaxe he has carried with him since leaving his village. Later that evening Cade goes to the stables to attempt to milk Billy, the snake he took from the stolen caravan. There he meets Radur Brayon, son of Sarah and Lorus Brayon. After talking to him for a while he obtains the description of Kaldur Brayon. Heading back to the inn he tries to decipher the shorthand Jeffel wrote in his journal. Without much success he goes to sleep. Taman decides to visit the temple to pay his respects to the fallen warriors. He meets Elyn Kathil, mother of Mera Kathil who is missing with Kaldur Brayon. He lends a hand with comforting the families and through talking with them and listening to the stories the other militia have told the families, he discovers something no one else has noticed. It seems the spiders are not attacking unless they are being attacked first. Almost like they are trying to stop people from leaving Wharram instead of trying to attack the town itself. After praying to Torm and Mielikki, he heads to the inn to get some rest. Lilith wakes early morning and spends some time going through the book on runes again. She waits down stairs at their usual table for the rest to show up. One by one they start making their way down to the table. Mary serves them some breakfast while Taman helps Lilith with her coffee grinder. Paddy Grinlok interrupts their breakfast by informing them that a scout with information on the missing Kaldur and Mera arrived this morning. They are to go see Burk as soon as possible. The party immediately finishes up their breakfast and heads to the huntmaster's home. Burk explains to them that a scout has found and tracked footsteps, which he is certain belongs to Kaldur and Mera, leading in the direction of a old ruined tower which he shows to them on his map. The scout confirms the information and provides them with directions to the ruined tower. Nok-Nok and Zaren compare Jeffel's map with that of the huntmaster and they share information. They learn of a ruins on the island in Crom lake and the Burk takes notes of the spiders nest, ruins and locations marked as dangerous. They also notice that a cave on Jeffel's map in the north is not on any of the modern maps. Taman pulls Burk aside and explains to him what he has discovered. Surprised, Burk realizes that Taman is not wrong and starts sending messengers to relay information to the militia and scouts on the front lines. The scouts are to fall back to the militia lines and the militia lines are to fall back towards the towns perimeter. In the mean time Cade pulls Carden Noll aside and quickly provides him with the steps to brew Nightsight poison. He explains the effects and gives one of the three he brewed the previous evening to Carden. Excitedly Carden takes notes and delicately handles the vial handed to him by Cade. The party spends a few moments in town gathering supplies and procuring horses for their journey before setting out towards the ruined tower. Zaren decides to stay behind with Fellarr to aid with the safety of Wharram. They travel at maximum speed only stopping every now and again to make sure they are still on track with the direction provided to them by the scout. Cade and Taman notice a few spiders watching them every now and again, but they do not seem to be actively following the party so they ignore them and push on. Reaching the end of the day, the party finds a suitable camping spot for the night. Tiredly they set up camp and Cade sets out some alarms around the camp site. Cade proceeds to try and mix some snake venom into his poison potions but fails his experiment, destroying all three his poison potions in the process. Nok-Nok shows Taman his new weapon and Taman is a little disturbed by it. Lilith tries to inspect the key once more and feels a slight pull on her necklace as she compares the runes on the key to the run embedded on it. She decides to share information about her necklace with the rest of the party. She also tells them that she thinks the necklace is being pulled towards the key. She informs them that she can speak abyssal and on demonstrating her capabilities with the language, Taman is shocked and becomes slightly defensive. After learning that she can also speak dwarvish, Taman relaxes slightly and replies to her in dwarvish to show that he can also speak that language. They decide it's best to keep the key and necklace separate until they have some spare time to figure out whats it means and focus on the task at hand instead. The party beds down for the night. The watches go without trouble, but everyone hears some sounds which they can't quite place. During Taman's watch, he notices spiders all around the campsite. They do not seem to be attacking. He tries to chase them off with stones and torches, but they seem to stay just out of his reach. Nok-Nok has another dream. When the party wakes up, Taman, frustrate with the spiders, explains that the spiders were there the whole night and moved away only once the sun came up. Cade feels his connection to Maya is still active. Previous episode: Episode 10 - Episode list: Campaign 1 - Next episode: Episode 12